ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - On Tuesday, KMOX brought in St. Louis demographer Ness Sandoval on Total Information A.M., who has been analyzing crime data for two decades.
Sandoval shared his concerns about lack of transparency regarding recent crime stats from the St. Louis City Police Department, while St. Louis County and St. Charles County have started to make these figures public.
"The challenges that they're having getting this data in a format that can be made available to the public. I will just say that we are collecting data from police departments from across the country and this does not appear to be a problem for many police departments to make this data available." Sandoval said on KMOX's Total Information A.M. "I understand that they've made a transition to the new reporting system, but many police departments have also made that transition to the new reporting system."
Following the interview, St. Louis Mayor's Office reached out to KMOX, asking for an opportunity to respond to those concerns. St. Louis Mayor's Office Chief of Staff Jared Boyd joined KMOX Wednesday to respond to Sandoval's concerns regarding the lack of transparency with the city's crime numbers, highlighting that St. Louis City Police Chief Robert Tracy has had a lot of things on his plate since becoming the first out-of-area hire for the job.
"Chief Tracy has had to triage a number of issues in the department and when it comes to priorities, reducing violent crime has been at the top of his priorities," said Boyd.
Boyd tells Total Information A.M. overhauling the website to provide better neighborhood crime data is on the cities to-do list and work should be complete by the middle of the year.
Boyd also adds crime stats are dynamic and numbers can change based on developments in any criminal case.
"Further investigations determine that the homeowner has the ability to use self-defense and that incident would likely be reclassified in subsequent reporting," said Boyd in an example.